India Ranks as 66th Most Innovative Nation

India, though trying to be nearer to its innovation destination, just keeps slip slidin' away.

BANGALORE, India -- There is a recent report that says India has been ranked as the 66th most innovative nation among 142 economies, having dropped two places from last year's position on the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2013.

The index, which ranks 142 countries across the world on their innovation capacity and efficiency, was published by Cornell University, INSEAD, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as a knowledge partner.

Switzerland topped the list, followed by Sweden, United Kingdom (up from 5th in 2012 and 10th in 2011), Netherlands (up from 6th in 2012), and the US (up from 12th in 2012).

The study used 84 indicators, including the quality of top universities, availability of microfinance, and venture capital deals. Further, it said that several of the emerging economies have demonstrated rising levels of innovation compared with their peers.

However, India ranked first in the Central and South Asian region followed by Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka, and it stood 11th in overall innovation efficiency ratio. The report further said that a group of middle- and low-income countries, including China and India, are outpacing their peers, but haven't broken into the top of the GII 2013.

Why the low ranking?
Back to India now: India's low ranking in parameters such as political stability (rank 123), ease of starting business (rank 128), school life expectancy (rank 109), pupil-teacher ratio (rank 108), and knowledge absorption (rank 122) were instrumental in its downward journey, the report stated.

And somewhere along the line, India, though trying to be nearer to its "innovation destination," just keeps slip slidin' away.

At the beginning of this year, the Indian government announced its new Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy 2013 (STI 2013), at the centenary session of the Indian Science Congress. What was different in this year's policy was the inclusion of innovation as a key component.

You can say it took a long time for India to look at innovation, but at least it has finally done so.

No doubt, India is one of the largest economies in the world, and some of the brightest researchers in the world are from India. Seven Nobel Laureates, five of those in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) have Indian roots. In 2008, India had a successful moon launch, Chandrayaan -- which, until then, had been achieved by only six other nations.

On one hand, there are only a handful of companies (which many of the EETimes readers would not have heard of) that are global leaders. Like, say, Bharat Forge (the second largest forging company after ThyssenKrupp of Germany); Marico (the world's largest packaged coconut oil brand); Essel Propack (world's leading manufacturer of laminated tubes, with a 32 percent market share); Hindalco (world's leading producer of aluminum rolled products); and of course you have the likes of TCS, Infosys, and Wipro in the IT space. Several of them have been impacted by the lingering recession worldwide, but nevertheless, they are leaders in their own fields.

In my opinion the reason for India getting such a lower rank in Innovation Index is that Indians are shy of publicity. They are shy of filing patents for the innovative ideas and averse to defending them. They are lazy enough not to publish their work in international journals

The innovative creations are popularly known as "Jugaads" in India. And I believe a book has been written on this.

In the era when there were restrictions by Western world on giving access to the latest technology to India ( computers, Nuclear reactors, weapons and such other technologies) there have been may be millions of "jugaads" created by Indian farmers, technicians, engineers, scientists, doctors,many of which may not have been documented well.

If all of that goes into print and patents , may be India will jump many positions up in the Innovation index.

Sofia, yes there are many cool innovations that have not seen any publicity at all. For example, before Dr. Ashok Gadgil (of UC Berkeley / Lawrence Livermore Lab) popularized "Darfur Stove," there were versions of it in India for efficient burning of fuel. I can go on to cite other examples where circumstances (like export restrictions by US) forced Indians to innovate and in the process improve what they were seeking to begin with in the imports!

It is worth noting that India also ranks well below China and even Saudi Arabia when it comes to Global Competitiveness Index:

http://bit.ly/dN63V4

That should serve as a rallying call to action for the Indians -some thing along the lines of what US did when the Russians sent Sputnik up to the heavens! Only time will tell in India's case.

Yes, when you talk of innovation from India, usually, the mitticool fridge comes up and for those of you know are not aware of this -it is refrigerator which is made of clay and keeps fruits and vegetables fresh for almost up to a week. Mitti or clay is a natural coolant and this property of clay has been used well to make a natural refrigerator. In this device water is poured into a chamber from the top which percolates downwards between the 2 layered walls. During this process the water evaporates by convection and keeps the storage chambers cool. And the Jaipur Foot is a rubber-based prosthetic leg for people with below-knee amputations and it was designed and developed in 1968!

Am sure like Divakar says there must be some really good innovations but somehow they are not able to breakthrough.

There is a Nasscom group which is supposed to foster innovation in It products, and the National Innovation Foundation of which Anil Gupta is the Chairman-- but these are so miniscule if you were to consider a large country as India.

There was this oerson who was trying to develop a machine to pick cotton and he struggled for 10 years till Anil Gupta;s Honeybeen network team helped him out, I think.

There is no real/actual ecosystem for the entrepreneurs to take advantage of and thereis lies the demise of their idea and spirit.

@Junko: regarding products (more like lack of!) from Infosys, it was an eye opener to the engineering & MBA students in the audience. Every one there knew MS Word, Excel, Power Point etc., but could not name a single thing from Infosys. The point about innovating new products and sustaining them finally found home.

There are many examples from India on frugal innovations -ChotuKool fridge, Jaipur leg... efficient cataract surgery (Aravind Eye Care), refrigeration without electricity (MittiCool)... more recently Tata Nano (the cheapest car) among many others to name a few. The Indian government rightfully made innovation as the key to sustained growth and formulated a national imperative back in 2010. If Cornell's reports are to be fully trusted, then the results are obviously disappointing.

I have come across the same argument about India's lack of Nobel laureates. There is indeed an acute lack of basic / fundamental research for a country of its size and population. But the work force to do such research leading to Nobel awards often makes it way to Western economies. It would seem the ecosystem which exists today in India for fundamental research needs to be scaled 100X!

How ever, the same is not true with literature. With 18 different languages and thousands of literatary works, I can say that India's contributions have been largely ignored by the Nobel committee. Those of us who are proficient in Indian languages and English can confidently say there have been hundreds of works & authors in literature have been ignored for the Nobel award. But that is another topic... sorry for the digression!

before we talk "innovation", we better get a clear definition on what it truly means. For this article, I assume we are talking the real "innovation", not the "talk innovation". Basically, I don't find the listedparameters used for the ranking having anything to do with innovation. For one, in the history of Electronic designs, more innovations were made by people taught in classes that were very large by today's standard, maybe class size doesn't matter after all ? if that parameter is invalid as a yardstick, maybe other parameters are qeually not applicable ?

@docdivakar, as usual, thank you for contributing a very well debated. thoughtful take on the whole issue.

I like the fact that you actually asked your audience during your speech in Bangalore if they can name any memorable product from Infosys. You made your point very clear.

You mentioned that you personally know of many innovations where people from ordinary walks of life have innovated neat things driven by high cost of imports, found alternate ways to do things more efficiently using machines or methods.

I would definitely like to know more of those -- obviously, unless you are local, you won't find those examples...

@Junko & @Dylan, I am not at all surprised by this. In my one-on-one discussions with powers that be at the local government and with educational institutions heads, I have brought home this point umpteen times over a period of a decade or more. The fact that the Indian Patents Office (IPO) formalized its patents policy only a couple of years ago and that the guidelines and documents were released even later speaks volumes on where the priority on innovation stands. But the fault also lies with the Cornell report's methodology in gathering the metrics.

Indian populace by nature are very innovative. But sadly the govenment's so called IT & BT initiatives favor companies like Infosys & Wipro mentioned above which largely provide a service at a lower rate; their model of innovation is really how to provide a service at a lower cost which is replicable by other lower cost countries! In one of the lectures I gave couple of years ago at Bangalore, I asked the audience to name one product developed by Infosys that is well known to any one computer-literate. Not one hand went up.

I personally know of many innovations where people from ordinary walks of life have innovated neat things driven by high cost of imports, found alternate ways to do things more efficiently using machines or methods. I doubt if Cornell's report gathering process had boots on the ground to gather these metrics. On the same token, I would place blame also on the Indian government initiatives -it needs to place proper emphasis on smaller & individual enterpreneuers, not the big service type companies like Infosys.

India coming in at such a low ranking was quite a surprise to me. Sure, I understand a number of issues on India, as Sufia laid out on this article...but this really doesn't give much confidence in India, if I were an investor.

Aside from the government's initiative on "innovation," what other "pro-India" arguments are there, I wonder, as far as investment is concerned.